Two Mile Jenolan Caves Road Restoration
McIlwain delivered the Two Mile Jenolan Caves Road Restoration as Principal Contractor for Transport for NSW, reinstating safe and reliable access along Jenolan Caves Road following major natural disaster–related slope failures.
The works restored the sole access route to the Jenolan Caves precinct and a critical regional connection between Lithgow and Oberon.
Delivered within the Greater Blue Mountains World Heritage Area and directly above the nationally significant Jenolan karst cave system, the project required a highly considered approach to balance engineering performance with environmental, heritage and stakeholder obligations in an environmentally sensitive and constrained setting.
Across nine failure sites, comprising one upslope and eight downslopes, McIlwain delivered complex stabilisation and road restoration works under challenging ground and weather conditions. Disciplined staging, adaptive methodologies and coordinated delivery across multiple concurrent work fronts enabled progress to be maintained while managing access constraints and maintaining road availability.
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Sector
Natural disaster recovery, Slope stabilisation, Transport
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Client
Transport for NSW
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Location
Jenolan, NSW
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Duration
June 2024 - March 2026
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Value
$53.5M
Project Scope
Stabilisation of eight slope failure areas through:
- 1,750 soil nails (varying in length from 1.5 m to 8 m)
- 2,794.37 m² of shotcrete
- 1,851 m³ of mechanical scaling
- 1,100 m² of mock rock shotcrete
construction and modification of stormwater drainage including:
- 210 lineal metres of sub-horizontal drains
- dual 1,050 mm (35.66 lineal metres) reinforced concrete pipe culverts with poured in-situ headwalls and pits
- single 600 mm (7.1 lineal metres) poured in-situ pit
- dual 525 mm (18 lineal metres) reinforced concrete pipe culverts with poured in-situ pit
Overall works
- vegetation clearing and grubbing
- installation of approximately 80 m² of 300 mm reno rock mattress
- approximately 3,500 m² of hydro-mulch applied
- installation of 1,123 m² of GreenAx matting
- installation of approximately 11 m of 900 mm HDPE pipe
- temporary works design and implementation to facilitate safe access and construction plant use
- traffic and access management to maintain daily reopening of the single-lane road
